Happy Easter!!!

Happy Easter everyone!  Sorry this post is late.  We had a fun and busy Easter Sunday with lots of family and yummy eats!  I hope everyone else had as wonderful of a day as we did!

The day started off great by finding ourselves woken at 8 a.m. by a baby who decided to sleep in two solid hours later than normal!  Probably helped she had a late night the evening before, but either way, we'll take it!

Madeleine had breakfast and then found her basket from the bunny.  It was hiding in the laundry room...that sneaky bunny!

 Ohhh, look mom!  Cadbury Mini Eggs! 

 I GET TO EAT THEM?!?!?!?!

After opening her basket it was time to take a bath and get ready to head over to grandma and grandpa's  to help cook Easter Dinner over there!

When we arrived, Maddie was greeted with a SECOND Easter basket.  Looks like the bunny got lost and left some goodies over there too!

 She insisted on having the darts opened...

 And found it absolutely hysterical every time someone got hit with one.

 Yum.  More chocolate!  Thanks grandma!

 Look at my bunny dart, mom!!!!!!

And cute of all cute, grandma found a book that she could record herself reading.  I think it's awesome that Maddie can have grandma read to her whenever she wants now!

Maddie cooperated for a few cute pictures with family....and here they are:

Dinner turned out fantastic.  Maddie thoroughly approved of the new ham recipe.  Ryan's twice baked potato request was a huge hit with the casserole recipe my mom found.  And the dinner was rounded out with salad, cooked carrots, baked beans, and rolls.  Dessert were egg shaped cake pops and strawberry shortcake.  It was all delish.

Book Worm

M added to her classic first editions list this Easter.

Here's her collection:

She has good taste in literature.

Dyeing Eggs 2013

Oh man was dyeing eggs interesting this year.  Last year I remember handing M an egg and having her be all interested in just touching it.

This year, I handed M an egg and she slammed it into the table...cracked egg #1.  I handed her another one and told her to be gentle.  She set it down nicely and then slammed her hand down on it...cracked egg #2.  So, we decided to give it the good 'ol 3 strikes your out try and handed her a 3rd egg and this is what happened:

And then there were 11...RIP little egg, RIP.

Maddie created her own art work on one of her eggs...it between trying to eat the crayon...

So proud of herself for making her own egg...she even picked the color to dye it:

Then she decided that dyeing her hands orange and green would be SUPER awesome and so much fun she couldn't even resist...

Some of the eggs coming out of the dye and Miss M pretty excited to see them:

And the look on her face when I was checking to color on her egg was priceless:

Anddddd....the finished eggs.....

M's artwork:

And all her eggs!  I'm excited the pink turned out so well this year!!!

Potato Leek Soup

Since starting Door to Door Organics, I have a new found appreciation for these:

Leeks!  I think my next leek adventure will be sauteed as a side dish since I think they're delicious.  Tonight, we tried a new recipe from Alton Brown for Potato Leek Soup. 
It got 2 thumbs up from Ryan and I, but 2 thumbs down from Maddie. 

What will you need?

Plus, obviously your leeks!  I could have tried to go more natural with this and make my own veggie broth, but we just did not have the time.  Instead, I picked up some broth that had this beautiful ingredients list:

Ingredients:

1 pound leeks, cleaned and dark green sections removed, approximately 4 to 5 medium
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
Heavy pinch kosher salt, plus additional for seasoning
14 ounces, approximately 3 small, Yukon gold potatoes, peeled and diced small
1 quart vegetable broth
1 cup heavy cream
1 cup buttermilk
1/2 teaspoon white pepper
1 tablespoon snipped chives

To start off, chop up your leeks small.  One tip is to put your chopped up leeks into a bowl of water.  This will wash the inside of them and get all the dirt out.  

Just skim them off the top of the bowl and you're good to go! 

In a 6 quart pan melt your 3 tbs of unsalted butter (I used salted butter and skipped the kosher salt), then throw your kosher salt and leeks in and sweat them on medium heat for 5 minutes.

Turn down the heat and cook the leeks until tender, or about 25 minutes.  While the leeks are cooking, peel and chop up your potatoes into small pieces.

 Now add the veggie broth and chopped up potatoes.  Bring it to a boil with medium high heat, then turn down to low and cook until the potatoes are tender, or about 45 minutes then turn off the heat.

Now it's time to pull out your immersion blender!  I love this thing!  Blend your soup until it's smooth...

Stir in the 1 c. heavy cream, 1 c. buttermilk, 1/2 tsp white pepper and tbs of chopped chives.

I ended up adding a bit more white pepper and salt at the end to taste.  And voila your soup is ready to serve!!!

Overall, I liked it.  The buttermilk added a bit of tang to the soup that you don't normally see.  Next time I don't think I'll blend it to smooth.  I like my soups to have a bit more texture.  But, the flavoring was good!

Easter Egg Hunt

Today was M's first Easter egg hunt.  I have been totally geeked about it for weeks.  Yeah, I know...I'm lame.

Canton put on the Egg Hunt at Heritage Park.  I was hoping for at least decent weather because I didn't want to take her out if it was too cold since she's still recovering from the pneumonia.  It was a bit chilly, but nothing a hat and gloves couldn't handle, so off we went.

It was pretty packed when we got there, but it was CRAZY when we left, so I am really glad we got there right when it all started.  We had to wait about 10 minutes for them to spread out all the candy and eggs for the kids, so while we were waiting M decided to wander around and check things out.

This has to be my new favorite picture of M.  Her face here is the best!  Totally captured her mood for the event!

We tried out the bunny again since she was excited to see her and waving like crazy.  She's still not a fan.

EGG HUNT!  The 3 and under hunt is pretty easy, as you can see.  The hunt for ages 4-11 is a little more difficult as the hide everything all over the giant playscape they have.

 She picked up one egg...

 And then decided that Twix bars were WAY more awesome...

 Look at my Twix bars mom!

They had a magician inside The Summit so we went to watch for a while...note she's still holding on to her Twix bars.

 Yep.  She still has the Twix.

 They had a petting zoo outside, complete with a donkey outfitted in an Easter hat...

 ...and a cow!

We all had a lot of fun!  I'm so glad we went this year and can't wait to take her again next year.  If Plymouth is doing their candy drop next weekend, we'll probably take her to that too!